2018: The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable—but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock.

Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, The future is not ours to see, Que sera, sera !

DJ-https://thebulletin.org/timeline The "doomsdayclock" has been at two to midnight earlier from 1953 to 1960. One could argue that risks have increased that much-with more countries having more "battlefield-use" nuke's, also climate change and modern technology (getting weaponized, from drones to computerized defense) do increase the risk to humanity.

In their pressconference the Bullitin-group underlined that comparing 1953-1960 to 2018 is "complex" but the essence is risk assesment. Risks did increase since 2017-two-and-a-halve to midnight.

n testimony before the Senate, national security strategists from the Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations identified nuclear annihilation, climate change and emerging technologies as major challenges facing the US.

Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz were joined at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. They all referred to the rising threat of nuclear annihilation through the erosion of international cohesion rather than consolidation.

Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, The future is not ours to see, Que sera, sera !

In advancing the famed clock last year, the group noted that “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”

But the organization also cited the election of Trump — “who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts,” Krauss and retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley wrote in an op-ed last year. “Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person. But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.”

“Over the year, there has been increased tensions with North Korea, nuclear threats conveyed by President Trump and Kim Jong Un, tensions with Russia are higher — perhaps as difficult as they have been since the end of the Cold War,” he said Wednesday. Within days, Kimball noted, the Trump administration is set to announce a nuclear strategy that calls for expanding the role of U.S. nuclear weapons. “So the risk of a nuclear conflict by accident or by design is unfortunately growing higher,” he added.

Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, The future is not ours to see, Que sera, sera !

In 2017 the board also included factors such as the threat of cyberwarfare and autonomous machine systems (a.k.a. Artificial Intelligence). According to the board’s opinion, it is no longer possible to limit the field of threats that endanger human kind to nuclear weapons only, as new threats continue to emerge.

Not just a gauge

It is incorrect, though, to think of the Doomsday Clock as a gauge that simply shows the opinion of a small group of experts on how close humanity is to its end. Not only is each change to the clock’s hand motivated by a detailed report on the current state of affairs in the world, issued by the board each time they move the minute arrow; they also give their recommendations as to how the situation can be improved and move the hand further from the midnight mark.

For example, in their 2017 report they recommend that the US and Russia return to the negotiating table to resolve their issues and relieve tensions, as well as to reduce the alert levels of their nuclear weapons. It also called upon all countries in the world to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, to fulfill the Paris Accord, and create institutions, designed to explore and address potentially malign new technologies.

Among the factors that moved the minute arrow in 2018 are the significant progress that North Korea has made in its nuclear program; the war of words between Trump and Kim Jong-un about whose nuclear button is bigger; and deteriorating relations between the US and Russia.

Que sera, sera, Whatever will be, will be, The future is not ours to see, Que sera, sera !

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